David and Emma both waited for elaboration that never came. Finally, David offered a nudge.
“It doesn’t seem like most people adjust well when they come to the island.”
“It’s not so bad here, if you keep busy.”
“I notice you don’t partake in your own product. Is that part of keeping busy?”
“I’m not going to sit in the back room and drink by myself, if that’s what you mean. And I don’t have anyone else to drink with these days, so why bother?”
“You grew up here, right?”
Emma didn’t need to see David’s eyes to know they were warm. She could see it reflected in the way Jessie’s hands slowed their usual fidgeting, then came to rest on the bar.
“Yeah. Born and raised. My parents had a fishing boat, years ago now.”
“Then you must have friends on the island. I’ve met one or two people who weren’t entirely impenetrable. I could introduce you.”
She ignored his attempt at humor. Jessie in conversation was a roulette wheel. She came to rest on a topic and there was no arguing. “Sarah used to be my friend.”
“I haven’t seen her around.”
“Yeah, but that’s now. When we were kids, we couldn’t be separated. She’s a good sort. Warmhearted as a collie.”
“Then what happened to her?”
“Nothing.”
“Let me guess. A new boyfriend?”
“No. It’s not that. Last year she made me a batch of lamingtons for my birthday.”
“That bitch!”
“It’s not like that. I don’t like lamingtons. I never have. So I’m standing there in my front room, trying my best to eat the cake out of the middle without getting any coconut in my mouth, and be stealthy about it. And it wasn’t that I was afraid to look unappreciative.”
“You didn’t want her to make a fuss. She comes over, says oh no, how could I forget you hate coconut, then you have to act like you don’t really hate it that much, so she doesn’t look like a terrible friend.”
“Exactly. She doesn’t remember the time I nearly chundered when I ate chocolates that had coconut inside. People know we used to be close. If you ask anyone they’ll say ‘of course you two are mates, I see you together all the time.’ But I don’t know her anymore.”
“I know what it’s like to play that game. Everyone I know likes to tell me about myself. And I wonder, who is this person that they believe they’re spending time with? Why would they do that with someone they don’t know? And who am I to tell them they’re wrong?”
They were silent again, each one looking down at the bar. Emma was about to turn and creep back to bed when Jessie started again, quieter this time.
“It's getting cooler at night. Soon it will be winter, and we won't be able to go out much in the small boats. Last year it started to turn on Mothering Sunday and didn't warm up until September. This year it's still alright. Last year was bad, though.
“There's always something goes wrong once it turns. Last year there was a freeze that killed some sheep. Mind you, last year was worse than this year. But last year wasn't as bad as a few years back, when the ground turned bitter and we couldn't plant potatoes in the spring. They had to bring spuds in from New Zealand.
“Before that there was one year when it didn't start out too bad, like now. But something wasn't right. Could have been the gloom and the grey affecting people. They would get lost. Just walking back from a paddock or the cannery, not even as far as the downs. Someone would find them wandering up and down a ditch somewhere, late for supper.
“It happened to me one evening that year. I was on a hill halfway up the slope, and I came walking back. You can see down to the water easy enough from the hill, but when you start walking it all drops below the rocks and the bushes, and when I got back to a higher bit of land, it didn't look like I was any closer. In fact, the village was off on my left side, when I had been walking straight for it.
“That went on for hours. I think. I don't rightly know how long it was before Darren found me. When I asked where I was, he says I'm clean on the other side of the cannery. That sort of thing happened to a lot of people that winter. Nobody talked about it or mentioned it, except His Excellency. He's English, too. And part French, I think.”
“And what's he like, then?” David gently intervened to stop the wheel at its current position.
“His Excellency? Well. He's very kind, and fair. And a great sense of humor. He used to say 'dinkum' a lot, just to wind us up.”
“Do people not say that here?”
“Are you having a lend? Do I sound Australian to you?”
“No, certainly not.”
At the mention of the Governor General Emma's body stiffened. She checked her clothes to make sure she wasn't wearing them backwards, wiped the line of dried spit from the side of her face, and mustered as much dignity as she could. She announced her presence by walking down the ancient stairs at normal speed.
“Em, you're awake.”
“Where is he?” Emma stared directly into Jessie's eyes. “You talk about him like he's perpetually out for cigarettes. Where is the Governor General?”
“Mrs. Cambourne, Constable, you just missed him is all. Honest.”
“So where is he now?”
“I don't know, Constable. It's the middle of the night. He's probably in bed.”
“What do you think they teach in police academy? The last person in that room is whoever cleaned the carpets. And I've heard every mouse fart that has taken place in this hotel since we got here. Don't tell me there's anyone in that room.”
Jessie gave a pleading glance to David. He looked pained and turned his eyes to the floor. Emma kept up the pressure.
“Tell me, Jessie. Whatever it is, you won't get in trouble.”
“It's nothing bad, Constable. He went out to inspect the cannery.”
Emma rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“Jessie...”
“It's the truth, Ma'am! I swear!”
David spoke with a well-practiced tone. “She wouldn't lie to you, Em.”
The room went quiet. Why was every conversation with these people like having an argument with an answering machine?
“If I get the run around from one more person on this island, I am going to lose it.” Emma made a straight line, past David and Jessie, to the front door.
“Em, where the Hell are you going?”
“I'm going to the cannery. Go back to bed.”
The paved road to the cannery was a luxury after the streets of the village. It began with little houses on either side, but quickly became a country road braced by overgrown tussocks. Here and there a fern would burst out of a crack or a pothole. In places sheltered by rocks or small ravines stunted pines twisted outward and up. The night wind blew down from the mountain, rolling pebbles and buckthorn leaves along with it. She felt gravel crunch under her feet, then realized the road was covered in tiny crabs. She tried to walk around them for a minute, then gave up. No doubt in the morning the sea wind would clear away the creatures and other debris and scrub the road with salt.
The cannery was visible from the edge of the village, half a mile away. Emma could see the outline of a building against the dark gray of sky, ocean, rock, and field. She tilted her head and tried to see it better. Something wasn't right. It took a few seconds to realize there were no lights. Even at night an industrial facility should have some lighting. Only the angular profile showed that it was a man-made structure. The smell that had lingered in the village was stronger here, like melted plastic dripping onto skin.
Up ahead the road followed the curve of the rocky shore as it jutted into the sea. At the neck of this tiny peninsula trampled grass and vehicle ruts made a shortcut. Emma followed the road that twisted along the water's edge.
On the fringe of this spit of land, the night wind reached the warm sea air. The battle sent up plumes and spray. Emma was almost used to it now. She pulled her coat tighter around her
neck and hurried through the gray. A gust of wind grabbed her before she could brace herself against it.
The wind whipped around and attacked from the wrong direction, knocking her off balance. Then it circled around and blew harder than before toward the sea. The wind caught the edge of her coat like a sail and pulled. Emma fell over onto the rocky margin between the road and the cliff overlooking the sea. Had she rolled or staggered two feet to the side she would have lost her footing at the spot where the cliff dipped vertically to the water line.
She grabbed the mud and vegetation like she was cleaving to the handholds on the side of a mountain. She turned to present the smallest profile to the wind and stood up. In the corner of her eye, she saw someone in the distance, toward the cannery and walking away from her. She tried to focus in the dim light but lost track of the tiny figure on the dark background of grass and rock.
She stopped and listened a short distance from the cannery gate. She could hear the crunch of feet on gravel from somewhere on the premises. She walked around the front of the building. There was no side.
The façade was the only part that remained of the large square building. The rest was in a heap of torn and twisted metal, dusted with pebbles of pulverized concrete. Her feet crunched on the debris as she walked closer. When she got within a few feet she saw that much of the material was charred.
Emma turned around and took in the area. There was a dock, intact but empty. Sheets of metal had been dragged from the pile of rubble and strewn across the open space between the building and the storm wall. Smaller outbuildings remained intact, though it was not clear how long it had been since they were maintained. Most things on the island looked abandoned to the untrained eye.
The gravel crunching sound came again from somewhere uphill. She sprinted around the perimeter of the rubble, paying no regard to the needles and claws of metal that reached out to her in the pitch blackness. On the far side of the building the silhouette of a man was standing or walking, facing toward her or away from her. It was impossible to say. She called out in a panting voice that projected little in the way of authority.
“Hello? Police!”
“What?”
“I said police. Who are you?”
“Steve White.”
“Steve?”
“That's what I said.”
“Did I see you just now, outside the gate?”
Steve looked back at the cannery gate. “I guess so. Don’t see anybody else around.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“I'm sorry, you said you're the police?”
“Right. I didn't know it was you. It could have been anyone out here.”
“Like who?”
“I don't know, Steve. You tell me.”
“You want me to tell you, who might be here right now?”
Emma felt reason oozing between her fingers and out of her grasp. “Let's start over. How are you feeling?”
“Fine... I take it you're Ned's new second.”
“I… What?” She waited for Steve to tell her he was joking. “No. No, this is not happening.”
“Alright, so you're the new police officer, but you're not working with Ned?” She couldn’t see his face, but his voice lowered.
“No, I mean… Please tell me you remember meeting me last night.”
“Uh... I remember.”
“Are you lying to me?”
The shadow in front of her was silent. Emma was only mostly sure she hadn’t gone completely insane.
“OK. You know what? Fine. I'm PC Emma Cambourne. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Now, would you mind telling me what you're doing wandering around a... No. First question. What the hell happened here?”
“The fire. A week ago, now. They didn't tell you?”
“Who around here would tell me anything?”
Steve nodded. “People don't much talk about it.”
“They don't talk about a building fire that's practically still smoldering? What does it take to get anyone's attention around here?”
“It's not that. It's… you know, the people.”
“What people?”
“The people who died.”
Emma took a deep breath.
“I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the Governor General was here when it happened?”
Steve looked down at the rocks and cement dust under his shoes. “I guess he was.”
“Steve, you're not going to understand this, and I probably shouldn't say it out loud, but this entire island can go fuck itself.”
He made no objection. Emma felt her frustration melt into fatigue.
“Why are you out here anyway?”
“I like to walk here at night sometimes. It's peaceful. You know, nobody around.”
“I know what you mean. You like being alone?”
“It's not a matter of like. It's always been that way for me.”
“I can relate.” She felt more comfortable looking into the dark profile of Steve’s face, catching a glimpse of eye or nose in the feeble light.
He turned away, looking in the direction of the concrete rubble. “Mind you, I wouldn’t mind having a dog to keep me company on nights like this. I miss dogs. There’s no kindness in the world like a good dog gives.”
The two of them stared at the ruins of the cannery while the night wind rattled a few pieces of corrugated steel back and forth.
“You know Constable, I’m not from this place, originally. My Mum moved us here when they had a flu outbreak. She was a nurse, and they kept her on for a few years. That was back when there was still a working school on the island, and it really wasn’t so strange growing up here when there was homework to be done and playtime to look forward to. But nobody likes the new kid anywhere you go. Have you met Darren? He used to put dead birds in my bag when I was looking the other way. It wasn’t until years later that I wondered if he had found them dead or not.”
“Having met him once, I wouldn’t bet money on either possibility.”
“But I wanted to fit in because what kid doesn’t? I learned how to tie a tinny up to the dock so it doesn’t float away, and how to talk the same way the other kids talked. I never mentioned England. Never thought about it. Then eventually everyone forgot. I can tell when I talk to them, that they don’t remember I showed up on a boat one day. We were only little, after all. Now Mum’s gone and there’s nobody left who remembers where we came from. Some days I forget too.”
He gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry to babble. It’s just nice to talk to someone from the outside world.”
Emma shuffled her feet. She had to know more, even if it meant bearing another person’s emotional burdens, with its body heat and its smell. She tried to remember what people said in these situations. “It’s alright. It must be difficult for you to live like that.”
“It bothered me for a while, after she died. I wanted someone to say ‘Hey, remember the cinema down the street from our old house?’ I knew I couldn’t talk about it to anyone. It would sound too much like a ghost story, and ghost stories around here are in very bad taste. But after a while I started to feel something else. I didn’t feel like I was alone in that house anymore. And somehow that was worse. There was anger in there with me. I wanted someone else to feel what I was feeling. I don’t know why it had to be Ned. I don’t know why I did anything. And now the feeling is gone.”
“I get it.”
“I’m not sure I do anymore. Why take it out on Ned that I’m miserable with my own life?”
“Direct it outward. It makes perfect sense to me.” She let the silence linger before digging into it. “I take it you don’t remember anything specific that happened between you and Ned? Anything that might have pushed him over the edge?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t do anything. Maybe I killed him. I think I might be capable of something like that. Does that make me a bad person?”
“No.”
“I disagree.”
“I happen to be something of an expert on the subject.” Emma’s voice was lower than she expected.
“You're wrong. I know you're wrong. But for some reason, I can't bring myself to care.” He walked along the other side of a burnt and broken fence. “We had a Yorkie before we moved here. Lady. Had to give her up of course. She would have been too innocent for a place like this anyway. Do you ever think about what your life would be like if you had never come here?”
“I've been here two days.”
“That's long enough to wonder. Why did you come here, anyway?”
“Somebody has to do the job and turns out I'm somebody.”
She fingered the wallet and badge in her coat pocket. The badge was real enough, with the familiar E and R. It was her name on the warrant card. The rest of it might convince some people if they didn’t look too carefully.
Her friend Rebecca had been willing enough to go along with the plan back in London. She wasn’t in a hurry to spend half a year on the other side of the world, so she didn’t ask whether it was legal to switch Emma’s information for her own on the personnel forms. Acharya would never think to check if she was ten thousand miles away doing a job meant for someone from a different district. Emma still couldn’t believe she had gotten away with it. Her plan did not yet have a part two.
Steve turned and she could tell he was looking her in the eye, colored faintly by either amusement or surprise. For a few seconds he stared at her while the wind blew between them. “Take some advice from someone who's been here a lot longer than you. Whatever you're running from, you're sure to find it here.”
There were bigger problems for the moment. No one had replaced the Governor General because no one in England knew he was dead. But it made no sense to keep it a secret.
No Stone Tells Where I Lie Page 7